From sound to written traits:

the musical dimension as a poetic composition process

Abstract

This paper aims at showing how musical traits—from the choice of instruments through the use of metric units to orality—constitute a fundamental part of the process of composition of poems in classical antiquity. In order to achieve this, we will go through the definition of poetic genres in Greek and Roman Classical Antiquity and we will also seek to expand this very notion of “classic” by investigating orality in some poetics of African matrices. It is an attempt to recover a performative dimension capable of highlighting a singularity, and also of better understanding the affection potential of each poem. In short, it is a theoretical movement that seeks to relocate the body at the center of enunciation, within communities based on oral communication, according to Ruth Finnegan theories, which can certainly generate significant noise throughout  transmissions.